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001: Carolyn — What I Love About the Church

Carolyn Ball has served in various capacities for the LDS Church, including: full time missionary, MTC instructor, relief society president, adjunct professor at BYU, and LDS Church employee for over 8 years.

In part 1 of a multi-part series, Carolyn discusses what she loves about the LDS Church.

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2 comments for “001: Carolyn — What I Love About the Church”

ECS

August 23, 2008 at 11:38 pm

Carolyn,

I appreciate you sharing your story. That has to be hard to share. I also can’t imagine your not being able to interpret for deaf members in Missouri. If I were one of those members I would be mad that they wouldn’t allow a willing and capable interpreter to interpret. I have done some interpreting in church, though I am not certified, and it has always been a very helpful service. Denying someone the understanding of their church meetings seems strange.

I am a happily-married heterosexual woman. Many people think I would be the last person to think differently about homosexuality than most of the Church or even to care. But I do. I have a relative who never could share with her parents or some of her siblings that she was lesbian, and it breaks my heart. I don’t know if she knows that I know she’s lesbian, and because she knows I’m Mormon I don’t know if she’d trust to tell me. (and I don’t want to bring it up- “by the way I know you’re a lesbian and it doesn’t bother me” just sounds weird to say. I did let her know that she and her partner are welcome to visit any time) But my mom told me and it doesn’t affect my love or feelings for her at all. There was one brother who she didn’t tell because she was afraid that he wouldn’t let her see his children. (My parents were a little more forward-thinking, so they got told, and even chose this relative and her partner to be the ones to raise us should anything happen to them [which it never did]) It makes me angry when people speak so unkindly about homosexuals. Next time I think I will speak up instead of just thinking it.

I will not speak against church policies about homosexuality, but I will say I don’t think there’s any reason that every LDS person needs to oppose legal gay marriage. I don’t feel that gay marriage cheapens my marriage at all,and I don’t see how it could. (if anything, Hollywood’s version of marriage cheapens my marriage)

You may or may not know these songs by Fred Small, but I wanted to pass along the lyrics: